Author Lex Neale is an independent Integral Theorist and member of the Integral Research Center. After taking a B.Sc in Zoology at London University he became involved in consciousness studies, and developing his thesis that the origin of life is consciousness. In India he became a practitioner of Prem Rawat's "Knowledge of the Self", and has an ongoing affiliation with the Prem Rawat Foundation, www.tprf.org He lives in the redwoods of northern California.

INTEGRAL POLITICS, POLITICS, AND SHARED SHADOWS

Lex Neale

So my observation is this: that there are Orange shadows lurking in the Integral psyche, and they need to be acknowledged

The last time I was roused to comment in this area was when Zak Stein initiated the Facebook debate "Integral Anti-Capitalism". My comments resulted in an extensive thread that washed and aired a lot of dirty laundry, and my hopes are for the same here.

My stance was that the concept "Integral Anti-Capitalism" is an oxymoron, and you have to first get Integral Capitalism together, if you want to get rid of Capitalism. It was the early days of electioneering, and I proposed to Zak the drafting of an Integral manifesto for Integral Capitalism and sending it to Bernie. Zak's response was "Send it to him yourself!" Such is not my thing - which is to expand the Integral Standard Model to be a more worthy player alongside Critical Realism (CR) and Spiral Dynamics Integral (SDi). So nothing happened in that regard, although it was a great opportunity to initiate Integral Politics in a meaningful way.

I said Bernie was not anti-capitalist, nor a socialist, but a leveler of Green playing fields. He was/is healthy Green, with healthy Orange leading to healthy Yellow/Teal. I also said that Hillary was/is Green with unhealthy Orange, and not leading to the healthy Yellow/Teal where Integral Capitalism will flourish. I therefore recommended, for the health of the Spiral, rooting for Bernie and the rise of Integral Capitalism that would transcend but include Capitalism and the disenfranchised blue collar (whites) into healthy Orange. I lost that debate on the thread.

So the Hillary supporters, along with Democratic National Committee (DNC) corruption identifying with and supporting her unhealthy Orange tendencies of power mongering, went on their polarizing trajectory of not only demonizing Bernie as a political Red (Socialist), true to the Orange shadow nature, but also Donald as a Communist Red because of his associations with Putin. Surprisingly, there was very little clarity regarding this in the Integral Officialspeak, and Hillary was integrally accepted.

Meanwhile, the blaring Trump announced his intentions, and Integral Officialspeak declared him developmental Red, unfortunately aligning him with poor Bernie who had already been pronounced Red and dead. So by integral association they were both undesirables.

This to me is where it all went belly up, because out in the world there were no Integral tools to separate the Bern from the Donald; and for the Hillary clan Bernie was now a double threat, where the Donald's divide and conquer tactics induced the Hillary camp response that Bernie had to be demonized and eliminated. It was a surprise for me and many of my peers to hear the same sentiment coming from the Integral camp.

From a healthy Green Integral stance, rather than seeing Bernie as a threat, he could have been seen as the best possible Green ally, along with his voter base and strength in the Senate; and whoever got nominated would have taken the other as running mate - a win-win. But Green/unhealthy Orange won the day, Hillary nominated her Orange shadow as running mate, and the Green/healthy Orange Bernie dutifully pledged to support her. But it was the nail in the Democrat coffin: first because the Bern had been disenfranchised, and second with the subsequent exposure of the DNC/Hillary collusion over Bernie's defeat. That Orange shadow could not be hidden.

Now, along with the post election blaming, we see Hillary, and many of our Integral peers, wailing how the "Red" Trump sabotaged the Green Hillary with cheap but effective tactics. What we do not hear is how her Orange shadow sabotaged herself. Nowhere do he hear that the "Red" Trump in fact has a very effective Orange feel for power, and that despite his obvious Red narcissistic shadow, and a slightly ruthless Blue business authoritarianism, he operates more effectively in Orange than Hillary, and for that reason he could be a more effective President than she would have been. Bernie, who also has healthy Orange, can see this potential in Trump and wants to work with him on the disenfranchisement of the American working/middle class. Trump also wants to level the playing field, although admittedly not from the altruism of Bernie. But they could make a good team, and the Donald may there find his redemption, in loving to be loved (he is a good father and business man in that regard), to begin to have Green aspirations.

So my observation is this: that there are Orange shadows lurking in the Integral psyche, and they need to be acknowledged.

So my observation is this: that there are Orange shadows lurking in the Integral psyche, and they need to be acknowledged, and they need to be released before the good of Integral can take its place in this world. For example, just as the shadow Orange of Green Hillary and her elites hate the more integrated Orange of Donald and Bernie, the shadow Orange of the Green Integral "Gatekeepers" and academic elites of our community dislike the non-orthodox progressive elements happening in Integral. When you take a look at some of these discussions happening on Integral World, it all becomes self-evident.

However, we can remedy this, in the same way that Bernie can (and probably will) redeem the Donald. We need better ways of seeing our shadows, using better Integral models that do exist but are not used due to those very shadow prejudices. As human individuals, we first need a better way of perceiving our own First Person self than the Integral Standard Model provides with its one UL Quadrant in a Third Person context. With a more expanded Integral Methodological Pluralism (IMP) First Person model with Eight First Person Perspectives, we can at last see where we are at, such as in our Social Affiliation (Octant 7), and our Social Activity (Octant 8) - where Justice and the lack thereof reign.

In Integral World I recently posted The AQAL Cube Integral Psychograph, which explains where we are at in our developmental Lines-as-Octant-Perspectives; and how we can overcome our fulcrum blocks regarding those. Shadows, like the dirt in dirty laundry, need to be seen and released. Otherwise we're wearing the same pair of undies year after year, and it gets obnoxious. We need to take 'em off and wash 'em! It's a start. If we want outer peace, we first have to, each of us, look within to our inner peace. Such is the nature of an integrated Integral.

I include here an IMP First Person template that I made for this Post, to show how without a full set of First Person Perspectives we have no way of taking a closer look at the altitudes of our Social Selves and see how they measure up to our other Octant/Lines.